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An anonymous reader send this quote from The Star:
"The idea that intelligence can be measured by a single number — your IQ — is wrong, according to a recent study led by researchers at the University of Western Ontario (abstract). The study, published in the journal Neuron on Wednesday, involved 100,000 participants around the world taking 12 cognitive tests, with a smaller sample of the group undergoing simultaneous brain-scan testing. 'When we looked at the data, the bottom line is the whole concept of IQ — or of you having a higher IQ than me — is a myth,' said Dr. Adrian Owen, the study’s senior investigator... 'There is no such thing as a single measure of IQ or a measure of general intelligence.'"

Slashdot karma probably indicates different things for different people. Some people who post here are IT people, who bring a long history of mixed education and experience to the board. Other people are just interested readers who are excellent thinkers, and bring little more than intelligence with them. Other people manage to maintain high karma based on being funny. Some folk may not be especially smart, and may not offer a whole lot to any particular discussion, but they read much more than they write, so that when they do make a post, it's well thought out, and contributes something.

A high karma rating really only indicates one thing, when all is said and done.

You've posted some posts that were liked by more people than disliked.

"Other people are just interested readers who are excellent thinkers, and bring little more than intelligence with them. Other people manage to maintain high karma based on being funny."

Funny doesn't do a thing with Slashdot Karma, it's not a comedy club. (most of the time)

Just pay up, so that you can get an early access to articles, then check Wikipedia and post 'insightful' or 'informative' posts with the learned knowledge about the subject. You don't even have to RTFA.

Yeah, well, it helps to have a math/logic/IT background obviously. I'd like to see just one IQ test that doesn't rely on set theory & geometric puzzle solving or maths puzzles, no general knowledge questions or cultural dependencies & that is pretty much language & education-level independent. Yeah, good luck with that *guffaw*.

The idea that IQ is bullshit, is bullshit. There is a very long and well estblished, very strong statistical correlation between high IQ and all three of these factors.

From what I read of TFA, whoever did the study doesn't know squat about prior research into IQ.

Granted: no one number can measure everything. And IQ doesn't pretend to. There is still a great deal of debate about what IQ actually means, in regard to a person's overall intelligence. But what is known is that the statistical correlation is very real, and no single, shoddy study, no matter how many participants, will make that go away.

It seems that in good Slashdot style, nobody has even read the abstract. It is quite specific:

"The higher-order “g” factor is an artifact of tasks recruiting multiple networks"

Now that is an interesting statement, it says that there is not one key element (or factor) for intelligence, which helps with a lot of tasks. Rather many tests measure the same core aspects of intelligence. That is an interesting finding, but it is also very hard to support: how do you measure that which you cannot measur

So which story are you standing behind: Is IQ a single real thing which can be directly measured, or is it a statistical analysis of a variety of different factors like the researchers in this story are claiming?

Is weight a single real thing which can be directly measured, or is it a sum of a variety of different body parts?

A traditional term for this sort of question is "false dichotomy".

We all understand why your weight isn't a very useful measure of size when buying shoes or gloves or hats, or just about any other article of clothing. Why is it so difficult to understand that the same might be true of intelligence?

Considering how little is know about the brain, current scanning technologies are more like radio telescopes looking at the sky. You can look, compare, theorize, but can't get any closer for validation.

With the now normal standard deviation of 16, an IQ of 172 would be 4.5 standard deviation which is around to 1 in a million which would be impossible to calibrate the test for and therefore outside the range of any serious IQ test.

Of course your number could have been measured using a non-standard standard deviation*, or even without a normal distribution (like all silly numbers you see over 200 are linear instead of normal distributions), but then it is not really what people except as an IQ number.

* A standard deviations of 24 used to be common in some places, and would put 172 at a more normal 3 standard deviations or 1/1000, this is where many test cut off, which would give you a result ending in a +, indicating you were outside test calibration. Still 1/1000 is "only" an IQ of 148+ using the normal standard deviation.

I have an IQ of 150, am a member of a 3 sigma IQ society. But I cannot remember names, and if I had to do manual skilled labor, I would starve to death. There are people with a much lower IQ who I admire greatly for their skill sets and abilities that I will never have

I have an IQ of 150, am a member of a 3 sigma IQ society. But I cannot remember names, and if I had to do manual skilled labor, I would starve to death

Manual skilled labor doesn't have too much to do IQ. The 'skilled' part, but not the manual labor part. It should be noted that IQ shouldn't determine a person's worthiness or value.

As for names, I can remember strange stuff. Chatting with my partner in the car, I could remember that Galadriel crossed into Middle Earth with Feanor after Morgoth stole the Silmarils and killed King Finwe. I then confessed that I didn't know what it meant that somehow I was able to remember Finwe's name easily, even though it'd been years since I'd read the Silmarillion, yet I had a hard time recalling names of co-workers I had worked closely with a few years back. What does that mean? How does THAT fit into 'IQ?'

It's a real slog reading the Silmarillion, thanks in part to the remote style Tolkien used. I didn't find it boring exactly. I found it stupidly tragic.

Behind half the plot elements is this notion of unrepeatability and decline. Yavanna can't grow another Two Trees to replace the ones the Dark Lord destroyed. Apparently, she also can't grow something else to light up the world, like a glowing tumbleweed, or mistletoe on the Trees, or a sunflower, or I dunno, a fly trap plant that eats spiders. We aren't given much of a reason why that's so, just a begging-the-question assertion that great works can only be done once. But, Feanor has captured the light of the Trees in his Silmarils, and they can be used to bring the Trees back to life. Except that somehow, this process would destroy the Silmarils, and that would so distress Feanor that he'd die. Naturally, Feanor can't make more Silmarils. Guess he didn't keep any notes! Then, Feanor is put on the spot, asked if he would give his Silmarils to Yavanna before they find out the question is moot, as the Dark Lord has also stolen the Silmarils. So Feanor gets to deny Yavanna, and she and her peers in their turn refuse to help Feanor get the Silmarils back. Another minor detail is that there are 3 Silmarils and only 2 Trees. Seems like Yavanna shouldn't need to destroy all 3 Silmarils to save the Trees.

Tolkien's universe is all about loss, regret, and decline. Sure broadens the scope for tragedy, but I find the whole idea grating.

Manual skilled labor doesn't have too much to do IQ. The 'skilled' part, but not the manual labor part.

I would argue not the skilled part either, but rather how quickly/easily the skill was obtained and mastered. Even then, the individual person and skill probably matter too.

My wife was a Gifted Education and English teacher (before she died in 2006) and her school district recognizes several categories or areas of "Intelligences" for their students - Math, Music, etc... Gifted students/people often - but not always - have a high IQ or high measurable IQ if also dis/differently -abled and their IQ/Intelligence may only be in one or a few areas of interest, like Math or Music. The same is probably true for everyone.

In short, one IQ number / measurement is probably insufficient as a true, complete indicator of everything.

Yes, the idea of multiple intelligences which cannot be captured or conveyed by a single numerical result has been brought up before. I just last year read a book called Frames of Mind by Howard Gardner [wikipedia.org] which talks about the Theory of multiple intelligences [wikipedia.org].
In fact, I believe that Gardner came up with the idea of multple intelligences in 1983 when he published that book. Gardner broke down the "intelligences" into:
-- 1.1 Logical-mathematical
-- 1.2 Spatial
-- 1.3 Linguistic
-- 1.4 Bodily-kinesthetic
-- 1.5 Musical
-- 1.6 Interpersonal
-- 1.7 Intrapersonal
-- 1.8 Naturalistic
-- 1.9 Existential.
I am assuming that a "score" can be generated in each of these categories, and thus your "IQ" according to Howard Gardner would actually be a point in 9-dimensional space rather than distributed along just a one-dimensional axis. I've skimmed through the entire book and read the first 5 sections almost thoroughly. I highly recommend it.

Almost. Feanor did not consider Galadriel dedicated enough to vengeance against Morgoth, as measured by perceived willingness to draw swords and chop up fellow elves who refused to hand over their boats. Feanor left her behind. Galadriel led a great host the long way around, across the immense icy expanse to the north.

That people have multidimensional interests, and skills, a fact that was well understood by the developers of intelligence tests, does not invalidate these tests for their intended purpose.

This "new finding" is nothing more than a rehash of the criticism of lQ tests since the Pleistocene.

But in truth, they were never intended as a single ruler to measure all dimensions of human intelligence, or the ability to learn. And, used as a general guide, they work quite well for their intend purposes .

Apparently the last people on earth laboring under the misconception of the purpose of these tests were the authors of this study.

Not to mention those of us with high IQ scores often did poorly in school because WE WERE FUCKING BORED!!!! Oh God was I bored to fricking tears! Everything was so damned dumbed down it was pathetic,there wasn't any in depth anything at my school because it was a "football school" so the whole place was built around what your average jock could pass (which wasn't much) so I spent I don't know how many hours in Junior HS in trouble because i would just start doing my own thing (like reprogramming their computers to be rude, that was fun) and the only reason I wasn't kicked out or dropped out of HS is because a coach ended up giving me my own class to teach jocks enough to pass the tests, which gave me time to read my science fiction and mess with computers and do other things that didn't want to make me run screaming from the sheer mind numbing BOREDOM!

At my high school we were called "eggheads" (by the faculty) and subjugated by deliberately putting us in situations that were boring and humiliating. My favorite was the policy of always pairing an egghead with the dumbest kid in the class for group projects. One time my forced study partner was arrested (for assault and arson no less) and could not come to class. When I asked for a new partner I was told that it was my responsibility to make up for it, that I should be learning some sort of lesson from this and that perhaps if I had forced this mentally unstable gorilla of a human being to do his work, he would have been too busy to get arrested. They took pleasure in punishing the eggheads for being different.

I wound up barely completing high school after being suspended for nearly an entire school year. I was so disillusioned by the years of anti-intellectualism that I didn't even want to go to college, but I wound up going to my state school just to be around my friends. Wow, what a difference. Suddenly I was rewarded for all the things that I had been punished for. Years later, at a fancy ivy league university, I met all the other "smart" people that floated to the top and was amazed by how seemingly marginal they were intellectually. The one thing they all had in common was that they went to private/magnet schools and had educated parents. They were nurtured and encouraged and motivated to go to good colleges.

To this day I am fascinated at how far behind I am and how hard I have to work to make up for those early years. I never learned how to use my brain and apply myself so I wound up a collection of random knowledge that I picked up outside of school rather than the focused and trained--though arguably less naturally talented--minds that wind up doing all the things that we normally think smart people should do (i.e., scientist, engineer, fancy pants professor).

What is it with names, anyway? Much of the world feels that remembering names is one of the most important things you can do. You've simply GOT TO remember who is who, right?

Like you, I'm supposed to be pretty intelligent. When I was younger, I remembered all sorts of important stuff, trivial stuff, things that were both useful and useless. But, names? In one ear, and out the other. Girls, teammates, workmates, officers, shipmates - I'd remember their faces, and what they did, how I felt about them, but forget their names. You could walk up to me, introduce yourself, and promise to pay me 500 bucks if I remembered your name next week, and ten minutes later I'd be kicking myself in the ass. "What was that guy's name? Mike? Mickey? Munster?"

I guess that I had to compensate for my strengths in some areas by being an utter moron in other areas?

Needless to say, I'm totally lost when people start discussing celebrities. I only remember a few names - like a Michael Jackson or a Tom Cruise.

My point wasn't that all high-IQ folks are inept in other areas but that high-IQ does not guarantee high performance in all areas. I am glad you are well rounded, but I agree with the summary in that intelligence is not reducible to a single number.

Definitely true. IQ is just a number. It measures the skill at solving a defined set of cognitive problems.

But on the other hand claiming that "IQ is a myth" is just as claiming "Height is a myth" just because there is not measurable correlation between a persons height and their overall performance in basketball. The performance in basketball is just rooted in A LOT more factors than just height, the same way that "real life" problem solving skills and success is rooted in a lot more factors than just the IQ.

Even companies that make IQ tests will tell you that an IQ test is not a comprehensive measure of your capabilities. And then they'll sell you auxiliary tests to cover what you're looking for.

But let's be clear about something, IQ does correlate with your ability to think through and solve those kinds of questions the tests ask you to solve. And they do correlate with each other on a relative scale, plotted as part of the validation process, even though the test banks are different.

IQ tests are not a magical dark art. These things have been the subject of study, consistent validation processes, and revision to separate out language and cultural biases since before any of us were born.

Despite the misleading headline, they are not claiming that IQ is a myth, but exploring what constitutes IQ. They are claiming that 'g' is a myth, or perhaps an artefact of several (as it happens neuro-anatomically distinct) skills.

The performance in basketball is just rooted in A LOT more factors than just height, the same way that "real life" problem solving skills and success is rooted in a lot more factors than just the IQ.

By treating IQ as a single factor among others contributing to real life problem solving skills you are re-inscribing what has the authors assert to have disproved. According to this paper IQ is itself "rooted in a lot more factors" than a single global intelligence. IQ is not a single factor, in the way height, for example, is. That is their point.

One day in the academic common room at my university an engineering academic and a mathematics professor were dissing each other. "You engineers, you just don't care that the "mathematics" you apply is an inaccurate bastardisation, it's a wonder your bridges even stand up!" "You mathematicians, you are so impractical, you spend your whole life fiddling with meaningless symbols."

A philosophy professor intervened. "Gentlemen, gentlemen... no need to argue, I'll devise a way to resolve your dispute. Meet me at the oval at three this afternoon."

When the mathematician and the engineer turned up at the oval that afternoon, they discovered that the philosopher had placed, at the other end, a comely and rather buxom young PhD candidate in Zoology. "Gentlemen, what I want you do to is to measure out in your mind's eye half the distance between you and the young lady on the other side of the oval. When I say "now" walk to that point, measure out the half way mark from there and so on..."

After a time the philosopher called out "now!" The engineer proceeded to walk to the spot, while the mathematician stayed frozen to the starting point. Again the philosopher called out "now!" and again the engineer moved forward leaving the mathematician right where he started. After the third turn the mathematician finally lost his patience. "You stupid engineer! Don't you realise that you can never arrive at the final point!"

"Oh I know that," replied the engineer, his face breaking out in a large grin, "but I can get close enough for all practical purposes."

As it happens, we do have the technology to measure height to at least within the closest cm, in almost any frame of reference where determining height as a datum (or 'data-point' if you prefer) of a multi-factorial prediction of basketball performance might want to be undertaken.

Contrary to The Breakfast Club, I also got As in shop class. Quite frankly, that ignorant assumption by Hollywood always irritated me.

It is not really surprising. One of the biggest correlating factors for intelligence (however you define intelligence) is general health, and general health is strongly caused by good nutrition. It should be no surprise that athleticism and physical skill positively correlates with brains. Quite a number of the legendary physics minds of the 1st half of the 20th century enjoyed hiking mountains and/or flirting with the ladies.

We may remember Einstein in his later years as some perfect nerd, but he too liked flirting with the ladies in his earlier years.

Contrary to The Breakfast Club, I also got As in shop class. Quite frankly, that ignorant assumption by Hollywood always irritated me.

It is not really surprising. One of the biggest correlating factors for intelligence (however you define intelligence) is general health, and general health is strongly caused by good nutrition. It should be no surprise that athleticism and physical skill positively correlates with brains. Quite a number of the legendary physics minds of the 1st half of the 20th century enjoyed hiking mountains and/or flirting with the ladies.

We may remember Einstein in his later years as some perfect nerd, but he too liked flirting with the ladies in his earlier years.

Mens sana in corpore sano, you're saying? I refer you to Stephen Hawking.

... there are obvious trends that some people learn more and learn faster then others and I'm certain this can be measured at a gross level. I bet there are methodological flaws with the study that will be debunked soon.

And I've read that IQ is correlated with memory. I'm amazed at how many otherwise smart people baulk at the notion that intelligence is measurable. Intelligence is based on the structure of the brain. Isn't that measurable? Aren't humans smarter than their ape-like ancestors? How did that happen without some sort of increase in intelligence? And if it increased, why wouldn't that be measurable?

The objections here seem to revolve around anecdotal evidence regarding people being smart at one thing, and not

Yeah, again. Seems every five years or so there's a book, article, or study saying that IQ is not a single thing.

Yawn.

The professor in my "introduction to psychology and brain science" course said "IQ is defined as what is measured by IQ tests." So it's not that it doesn't exist. The question is, what is it, and does it matter?

I'd mod you up but I want to participate. I see where the study is coming from, and I think you've asked the right question. I think what's measured by IQ tests is the ability to find solutions to abstract problems. In this sene, IQ measures your problem solving productivity. Of course, this doesn't make you the most amazing person ever. As the saying goes, it takes all kinds.

Unfortunately, other types of intelligence are not easily quantified. A social butterfly serves a great role in a production environment that I could never manage to fill without eventually having a breakdown, and there's really no question that their brainpower devoted to this is significantly more refined than mine. So, they have a much higher Social Intelligence than I do, but I may have a higher IQ than they do. Does that make either of us more valuable? No. Just two different cogs for two different parts in the big machine.

'Social intelligence' like 'emotional intelligence' are just examples of political correctness types responding to the possibility that IQ measures something useful. This is why they rail against standardize testing of any kind in schools too. Insecure people don't ever want to be compared by any objective method.

While I think there's a correlation with high IQ and high function, I don't think a single number proves jack shit by itself.

Its not about being PC, its about trying to put a name to a skill that cant not easily be quantified but definitely has real-world implications. I simply can't function at a high level in a social role the way others can, and I've tried and trained myself to do so, even when taking courses and focusing on it for two years. Give me complex data problems all day long, yet they do not tax my brain even remotely as much as coordinating and hosting a work event from start to finish. There is a visible, but un

The paper doesn't mention IQ anywhere. It's about intelligence. IQ is just a (very bad) way of measuring intelligence. The paper makes the claim that there is not generic problem-solving ability (intelligence), but different people excel at different tasks. It's a much stronger claim than saying that IQ is bullshit.

IQ is an extremely good way of measuring problem-solving abilities, useful in fields such as Computer Science. If your IQ is 100 or under, you probably aren't going to be a good coder, ever. Just like, if you are less than 6 feet, you probably won't be in the NBA, ever.

Yeah, again. Seems every five years or so there's a book, article, or study saying that IQ is not a single thing.

Moreover, this whole "IQ is wrong because intelligence can be measured in many different dimensions" idea never seems to hit the other major problem with how we typically think about IQ: IQ is bad because it suggests that intelligence is a fixed, innate quantity.

Why does this matter? Well, psychologists have found that people who perceive intelligence as an intrinsic personal characteristic have trouble learning new skills and overcoming certain types of obstacles. (Presumably because they are worried about appearing stupid at something.) By contrast, people who think of intelligence as something that is fluid, that can be built, are more willing to throw themselves into a new activity. Of course, the latter group ends up learning more, which makes your views on IQ curiously self-fulfilling.

As an example, one group of researchers gave elementary kids a reading assignment. The first paragraph contained some really dense material way above their reading level. The remaining paragraphs were accessible and age-appropriate. Kids who believed in fixed intelligence (as determine by a separate test) did very poorly on the reading assignment compared to their peers. Apparently, they got tripped up on the first paragraph and seldom completed the reading.

When I was a child, I was diagnosed with having a really high IQ. As a result people have been telling me I'm a "genius" for most my life and always pushing me to "achieve my full potential" and crap like that.

It's nonsense. Maybe I'm smart, maybe I'm not. I think trying to measure that is crazy and impracticable. I'd rather be judged by what I do, not what some test says about me.

And frankly I don't really want to be judged at all. I think I'm doing OK with my life, and that's really all that matters. All this unnecessary categorising of people... it's all kind of pointless.

Being smart, gifted and/or talented, ("gifted" people often think differently than just "smart" people), doesn't automatically mean you'll be successful, but you can be happy none-the-less. There are plenty of perfectly happy "gifted" adults washing dishes or waiting tables at restaurants.

Disclaimer: Before she died in 2006, my wife was a Gifted Education teacher for 20 years, after bein

I won awards left and right at first, then basically stopped bothering because I could fudge my way through just about anything(except english for some reason...) and still get better than average grades.

Partly I didn't have much encouragement from those around me, partly the school system itself here had absolutely zero way to accommodate someone like me who finished the entire curriculum for the year in the first month of classes with no at-home work.

They'd just recently banned the practice of pushing students ahead grades based on intelligence and ability to learn plus they hadn't implemented any sort of gifted programs. I believe the case is still the same. Its beyond reprehensible as they're turning some of the brightest minds we produce into lazy good-for-nothings that are LITERALLY taught to skate by.

The IQ test was not designed to be an absolute measure. It was developed by Alfred Binet as a way to rank between a group of children in a special education context. It gives only a relative measure between that group and does not give any absolute measurement of intelligence nor is it valid to compare IQs between different groups. The IQs assigned are only valid within the tested group.

The transition to it being an absolute measurement was pushed by the US military to test and measure recruits. This was a colossal screw up.

Or even more the case: Everyone says that Basset Hounds are a dumb breed, because they can't be trained. But I had a Basset Hound that figured out how to open 2 gates to escape the yard and could recognize about 100 words and even one that could say about 4-5 words pretty clearly, such as "hungry" and "walk", when they wanted something.

I don't know ANY other dog breed that does stuff like that without training. But if you try to train a Basset Hound, they just glare at you like, "Why in the heck would I w

'There is no such thing as a single measure of IQ or a measure of general intelligence.'

I once taught a mixture of kids from so called "3rd world environments", who also had very low IQ scores compared to the typical "exposed" American kids.

In my 11 years of teaching, not once did our American kids score better than the "3rd world" kids at all! This was despite the fact that these poor kids had to learn English grammar. Heck, one of them even reminded me of a few math tricks that I employed myself while in school.

I once escorted one such kid to her parent, and it was a shock to hear her switch to some foreign tongue before switching to English in order to introduce me. This particular kid is now at BP in Texas, and still writes to me. Incredible!

by a single metric, what use is doing to the human brain, other than to have another pointless number to have people boast about. (Nearly every person I met who bought up their IQ almost always claims to have 130+ points.... and I'm too polite to say it to them, but apparently underapplying themselves like crazy).

I almost never see a car rated just by it's mpg nor do I ever see CPUs rated just by their GHz.

I think one of the highest designated IQs belonged to Goethe and couldn't do math beyond some trig iirc for shit. Great writing though. Obviously a different type of intelligence than Einstein.

I've always looked at it like processor speed. I've taken a few "IQ tests" in the distant past, and I've come out to around 130 to 140ish. But that's really subjective and I understand why people think IQ is bullshit. I could be just average, who knows.

But when dealing with most people it just feels like I'm thinking faster. Like they are able to reach much the same conclusions, it just takes them longer to formulate thoughts and ideas. I get impatient that conversations are taking so long when I can already predict where we're going to end up. I sort of feel "overclocked" if you will. When I find someone who seems to think at my speed, it's awesome. We usually have a great conversation - that happens relatively quickly.

“If there is something in the brain that is IQ, we should be able to find it by scanning. But it turns out there is no one area in the brain that accounts for people’s so-called IQ."

Wow, the study's senior investigator said something this mind-numbingly dumb? Just because you can't find it using a machine that measures blood flow does not mean it isn't a meaningful concept. IQ definitely exists - it is a measurement. The question is whether it measures anything meaningful. But we wouldn't necessarily expect to be able to confirm that by sticking people in a magnet; it's a statistical question, not a question of blood flow in the brain...

Even the people that "invented" IQ didn't believe in it. It was designed to be a simple and useful measure of relative "intelligence" between people. Intelligence wasn't fully defined at the time, and the test was rigged to try to be fair, even when it was found to not be. Just by changing questions, I can change the relative performance of identified groups (woman and minorities two common groups to target). That was always known, and there are other limitations. This isn't a new position, and I didn't see anything interesting in the article.

Might as well be saying that shoe size is a myth because people have different widths for a particular size. That doesn't make the size a myth.

The original idea wasn't vacuous. The researchers who coined the term, particularly Spearman, honestly thought they had found statistical evidence for a single common factor that could be called "intelligence." But I thought that had all been thoroughly exploded by the 1950s.

There was a guy way back in the 1960s who worked out a sort of abstract block diagram, 6 by 6 by 6, of 216 different "thingies" that represented some aspect of intellectual performance. What was it called? "Structure of Intellect." Google, click click, J. P. Guilford. So he spent a chunk of his career devising psychological tests that ought to detect each of those 216 intellectual abilities and then doing the correlations to show that each of the tests was really, truly measuring something different from the others. When I encountered his stuff, he had successfully demonstrated the existence of about 150 of those 216 skill or talents. In other words, intelligence isn't one thing, it's at least 150 different, independent, things.

And that was in the 1960s. I'd have hoped that by now IQ was lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry, Spearman. Whatever was keeping it alive? Racism? The standardized testing industry?

I don't quite see how this goes much beyond what was known a half-century ago, though it's helpful to see it confirmed. But if the officials want to test intelligence, they will just go on testing intelligence, whatever the science says.

It is an undeniably obvious fact that some people are smarter than other people. So any study that says intelligence differences between people are a myth is obviously flawed and contrary to obvious everyday data.

- is not so much about the existence of intelligence, but the idea that we have understood it well enough to have pinned it down some 100 years ago, or that it would be a feature that could easily be seen in a brain scan. I didn't bother to read the article - it hardly seemed worth the effort - but I somehow doubt that any serious study of intelligence or brain funtionality would be as superficial as this; it is probably an artifact of whoever popularised the results.

What one has to understand is, that the concept of intelligence is an abstraction - a measure of 'ability'. But the human brain has a large number of abilities, most of which we don't know, and we don't have any clear picture of which ones are 'fundamental' and which ones are derived from a combination of fundamental abilities.

If I were to guess at what the study actually looked at, I would say that it highlighted the fact that our current IQ concept is useless because it does not produce consistent results. The right way forward, if we want to define IQ, is to first understand what we mean by 'ability', which ones are fundamental and how we can measure them. Once that is in place, we can start defining any number of reliable IQ measures.

I am a MENSA member but I hardly consider myself very smart. I mean, I'm kinda smart but I see lots of people that blow me away when it comes to various mental abilities. And none of them are MENSA members.

There was a good point made that only people who aren't thought of as smart have anything to gain by joining MENSA. For example, if you found out Stephen Hawking was a member of MENSA you might just about manage a "well, figures" but if you found out Sarah Palin was in it you'd go "wow, never expected that".

I am a MENSA member but I hardly consider myself very smart. I mean, I'm kinda smart but I see lots of people that blow me away when it comes to various mental abilities. And none of them are MENSA members.

As a Mensan, you should know that it's not an acronym and should not by typed in all caps.

I was a MENSA member for a very short while. They told me I had an IQ of 158. I didn't know what it meant, so maybe I wasn't that smart. I was smart enough to work out within the first 12 months that the overpriced annual subscription bought me nothing but a mag full of spam, and the opportunity to associate with a bunch of people who like to feel smart.

For me it was a chance to solicalized, to be long to group that was like me. Think, what others did in high school, I did post college.

I meet many different poeple, from guys to could not tie their shoes but could talk about Choas Theory for hours, to wonderful people who open their homes and their lifes to stranges that only had a card or newsletter annoucing an event.

Myself, I hosted a monthly movie "night" in my apartment. It started on first Friday of month and lasted until the last person left or Monday. Via that meet many people, including one that became my wife. My freinds in Mensa found out of our weddings plans when we both changed our addresses and my wfie to be changed her name on month newsletter. It was nice receive a hand written note congratlating us in each of our newsletters.

I left Mensa after I figured out that I out grew the it. I gradulate from that part of my life.

On a side note - since I also was at one time part of the management of the local group, membership was broken down to about 5-10-85 split.5% wanted the membership to prove themselfs. They did want the newsletter or any assocation, just a proof of making it.10% as active. The came to events, helped with fund raising and other programs.85% getting the newsletter and reading it and filling it aaway. These were the ones we kept trying to join in with 10% - it took me almost 5 years to start going to events and meeting people and become found I liked being with the 10%.

I found the time enjoyable. I was traveling alot, and found events in other parts of world that I drop in on while killing a weekend in a city that I did not know. Oh, and in Slashdot fashion - my mom, while I as living at home, found the test weekend and suggested that I take it.

This is not a dig, but several of the people relating their experiences with MENSA seem to have some real difficulties with spelling, context, syntax, and the lot.

I really mean it when I say that I'm not fucking with you. It's just interesting.

And by the way, maybe this might make some of you self-appointed geniuses understand that many of the people portrayed by the media as idiots - aren't.

That is simply propaganda; and of course some public figures make it easier than others to stick them with that tag. But anyone with a track record of success has intelligence. Denying it because you don't agree with them politically is simply being completely intellectually dishonest.

And while you cannot control what people think or do - you can control your own actions. So, maybe not repeating or reinforcing obviously incorrect things might be something you can do to move public discourse forward.

Because if you are one of the ones out there that like to hold on to the fiction that George W. Bush or Sarah Palin are unintelligent; that is just stupid on the face of it. Arguing that they're stupid because it's an easy way to propagandize people is not helping *anything*.

I remember when W. was running the first time and I had a very intelligent friend (and actual former MENSA member) who believed this hook, line, and sinker.

All it took for me to completely convince him how intellectually dishonest he (and the media) was being was for two weeks to point out every time he misspoke. That's all it takes. Speaking like Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan in public is a inborn talent that VERY few people have. It is NOT simply a function of high intelligence.

And if you are being completely fair about it; for a national level politician, George W. Bush is at least a better than average speaker.

And before you knee-jerk your reply - how many "smart" people do YOU know that could do as well as he did, under the kind of scrutiny and digging for flaws that was going on?

I do not have a degree in English. My wfie does, but does not try proof my writing any more, too many fights. I also have a hardtime with the language becuase I do not hear the differences in sounds of words like most people would have a hard time spelling to, too and two without "use" contect. But for me, I have that same problem many words like specific and Pacific. I use to leave on the west coast and if some says "go to Pacific." I would ask "Specific what?"

Then there is the fact that there is 0 correlation between success in life and IQ

Tell that to an intellectual disabled permos (defined as IQ 75 in Australia).It is a long way from a perfect correlation, but to claim there is 0 correlation is rubbish unless you are choosing some fairly bizzare measures of 'success'.